This is not so much about the history of Hugh O'Neill as about how the history may have been written. And, while it not the most touching or theatrical of Brian Friel's plays, it is surely one of his most underestimated. The dramatic conflict is not so much to do with Hugh O'Neill's life as with how and why the historical record came to be written by Peter Lombard, the Catholic Primate who omitted that O'Neill was educated in England, to minimise the fact that he married, for love, Mabel Bagenal, one of the "upstarts" from the new English colonisation at the time, and to create for history the fable (by no means entirely untrue) that Ireland had a hero, a defender of the Catholic faith and its believers, rather than a man who fled the country to become bankrupt and alcoholic in Rome.

Brian Brady's new production makes the most of the few significantly theatrical moments: the joyous lust with which O'Neill embraces his new wife when he brings her to his home, for instance, and the utter desolation of his hearing (in Rome) of her death in childbirth. But mostly it is about the argument by O'Neill for the personal truth of his life to be recorded, and Lambert's political insistence on the need for the Irish people to know that they had a hero they could admire. Friel's exposition of the arguments is intelligently wrought and deeply thoughtful, but does not amount to a compelling drama.

Gerard McSorley's characterisation of O'Neill is torn between conflicting loyalties, between what he calls two deeply opposed civilisations, hoping to reconcile the conflict by riding the sure tide of history, and certainly and subtly manages to embody not only O'Neill but the conflicts still tragically unreconciled in the history of this island. Chris McHallem is his faithful English servant, faithful not only to O'Neill but to his cause. Keith McErlean is an energetic, lively and wholly persuasive Hugh O'Donnell and Catherine Mack is the loving beleaguered and intelligent Mabel, Laura Forrest-Hay her rigidly uncomprehending sister Mary. Des Nealon, as the highly politicised Bishop Lombard, might have been a little more overtly Jesuitical in his diplomatic ministrations, but conveys his casuistry well enough.

They sent us out into last night's rain, not exactly singing with joy for the truths of history, but thinking seriously about how some of that history came to be written. Well worth a visit.

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